


Backstory: Unopened

by Capucine



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Bad Parenting, Camaraderie, Fellow Survivor, Gen, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 20:45:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7005724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capucine/pseuds/Capucine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Psylocke has her issues. She feels like Angel has his.</p>
<p>But that's his business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Backstory: Unopened

**Author's Note:**

> Ta da? I thought this made sense.

Psylocke was not that fond of sharing her name or her story. Her real name or real story, that is.

Psylocke was a fearless fighter, born of grit and steel. Flawless in her fight and something to be feared, beyond a mere human. There was amber glass to her eyes, shielded and unbreakable, and there was confidence to her posture, like she was made of flexible steel.

Betsy Braddock, on the other hand, was not.

And hadn’t been for years.

Angel, though.

He was practically a kid, but tough as hell. She didn’t know how long he’d been in the fighting ring, only that he’d survived. Been there long enough to make a name. To scrabble his way to survival in a setting that didn’t encourage it.

That was why she’d brought Apocalypse to him. She knew he was very strong, and resourceful. He’d turned wings, a not inherently threatening mutation, into terror and skill. He was potentially deadly, if he chose to be.

He didn’t typically choose to be if he could help it.

She’d been secretly pleased, briefly glad, that Mystique had set him free. Nothing huge, but pleased. People didn’t really deserve that.

_Most_ people, anyway.

She’d seen the way he was destroyed when she brought Apocalypse, though. His wings burned and hurt, drunk off his ass and angry.

She’d be angry too. Had been angry before.

It took a short time to settle in to working with him, less time than with Ororo, who was a teenager who didn’t necessarily know what she was doing. Psylocke admired her skills and passion, but she and Angel were hardened fighters in a way she wasn’t. Had been fighting so long they didn’t know how to do much else, including believe in the good of humanity.

Because they really weren’t fucking good.

And she got the sense Ororo felt fairly similar, growing up on the streets of Cairo, but in a different way. In the sense of someone who knows there are heroes out there, even if they’ve never helped them. 

Psylocke and Angel knew differently. Heroes didn’t really exist, only a different version of events.

Even Apocalypse was not a hero.

She and Angel talked, astonishingly enough.

His wings clanked a little, the sound of dangerous metal not unlike her sword. “Humans suck ass.”

She snorted at that. Rest times like this were few and far in between, but they took them. They were only mortal, after all. “That’s very profound.”

“Nothing about humans is profound,” Angel responded, “They’re disgusting and evil as hell. I can’t wait for them to be gone.”

Psylocke looked over at him. There was something in his posture, some deep burning anger. “Never known a good human?”

“Hard to know when you can’t hide what you are,” Angel responded. “They might act good when I’m not there. I don’t know.”

“You’re right. They act much differently when they presume you’re one of them,” Psylocke replied, sighing. Thinking back. The ones who couldn’t hide had it rough—Caliban had been a victim of violence before making it out. The Nightcrawler, Angel himself, almost anyone someone could look at and say, ‘You’re one of them.’

And she could remember the camaraderie when humans didn’t know. Or the way men acted like she was something to have, a hot piece of ass, before anything was revealed.

The way they had acted like she was disease when they did know.

Not just men hitting on her. Many people. 

It wasn’t her who’d had it hardest, though. That was Jamie.

He was older than her and her twin brother, Brian, by several years. He was a mutant like her—still was, of course.

Because what they had done to him was worse than death.

When his powers manifested, they were small. Reality bending, but nothing enormous.

And they assumed he was crazy. Put him on drugs, shock treatments, and her young memories were of him crying and begging not to be put away. Put into some stark white and green building where crazy people were hidden away so no one would be bothered anymore.

She had no doubt they drove him insane.

And for that, for doctors who tried drug after drug, treatment after treatment because they were right and he was wrong and broken, for what her brother became—she couldn’t forgive.

She couldn’t forgive her parents either.

It was what drove a wedge between her and Brian, because he just couldn’t get it. Because he wasn’t a mutant too. 

And Angel was watching her, hands curled tightly together. “Yeah. Like I said, humans suck ass.”

Psylocke looked over at him, wondering what they’d done to him, all in all. Who allowed him to be taken and used in cage fights. If it had been his family, like they’d let them hurt Jamie.

Who only lived in his own head now.

Apocalypse would fix it, though—not just Jamie. Make the people pay who did it, the humans who did this to so many mutants.

And she didn’t ask what Angel had been through. She didn’t need to. They were on the same page.

She was glad to fight beside him.

Backstory wasn’t necessary for that.

**Author's Note:**

> I pulled from the comics a bit. Jamie exists, as a reality-warping mutant. He is...rather weird.
> 
> And I dunno, it's more character study, I guess. I feel like those two got along well, considering how much they seemed to trust each other on the field.


End file.
